One step forward, Two steps back.

“We’ve just come to represent a decline in the standards of what we expect.” The 1975 said it right there. Within the past twenty years society has struggled with the concept of originality, the ability to put out new, intriguing ideas that are a person’s or a people’s own. Not only that but as a people, we’ve lost our past, hardly knowing movies and songs that laid the foundations for the beloved entertainment so popular today.

Don’t be mistaken, there are still classics released today and a variety of people that are aware of them which in the future will continue being revered, but there is less and less of that found every year. Covers, parodies, and sequels are constantly being produced. All great but in the end just over works a brilliant piece.

A poll recently taken of sophomores shows the shortfall in millennials aware of classics that their grandparents and great-grandparents flocked to see in theaters. Tenth graders were asked if they’d seen the following films Miracle on 34th Street, the Godfather, and the Goonies. A whopping 2 of twenty seven had cuddled in Christmas spirit watching Miracle on 34th Street. Three had cowered in fear witnessing the Godfather. And on a better note, 17 of the students had laughed their eyes out seeing the Goonies.

Unfortunately, culture propels the ideology that one should reproduce and copy a piece for the very reason that it’s easier. Here’s the thing classics are here to entertain but they are also here to inspire an audience to create its own unique art. Then there’s the fact that younger generations are so unaware that songwriters, directors, and producers can completely milk great works from the past and get away with it because no one knows them.

To ignore a problem such as this will have consequences. Eventually if the recycling of films and songs continue, there will be nothing left original to enjoy. Classics will cease to continue.

Some might say this is a minimal problem not important to address. For such a “minimal” problem, the solution is simple. Introducing, bit by bit, classics from the past to children and encouraging their own ideas and talents to flow instead of setting up a pressuring society where generations feel this need to copy and reproduce others works just to get by would be a start.

A lack of originality is something that’ll always be among people in the world, it’s inevitable, but it’s definitely something people can improve. And that’s all that matters.